Anissa Helou, born in Beirut in 1952 to a Lebanese mother and Syrian father, is an award-winning chef, food writer, journalist, and cultural historian whose career bridges art, cuisine, and storytelling. Educated in Beirut before moving to London in 1973, she first pursued art and design, completing a Sotheby’s Works of Art Course on the advice of close friend Zaha Hadid. After working with Sotheby’s and opening her own antiques gallery in Paris, she became an international art consultant for nearly two decades, advising prominent collectors including members of the Kuwaiti royal family. Following the invasion of Kuwait, Helou shifted her focus to writing, debuting with Lebanese Cuisine in 1994, a definitive collection of her mother’s recipes that remains a classic reference. This launched her career as one of the foremost voices on Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Islamic cuisines. She has since authored celebrated cookbooks including Mediterranean Street Food, Levant, Sweet Middle East, The Fifth Quarter, Savory Baking from the Mediterranean, and the seminal Feast: Food of the Islamic World. Feast won the James Beard Foundation Award in the International category, was shortlisted for the IACP awards, and hailed by The New Yorker as one of the best cookbooks of the century so far. Her influence was further recognized with the Foodics Icon Award for the Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2023. Helou has also consulted for Saudi Arabia’s Culinary Arts Commission, leading the landmark Saudi Feast project (2022). Her forthcoming book, Lebanon: A Culinary Celebration, will be published in March 2026 in the United States by Ecco and in May 2026 in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury. Today, Helou divides her time between London and Sicily, continuing to document, teach, and celebrate the culinary traditions of the Arab and Islamic worlds.